


In Hell With You

by layzell



Category: My Chemical Romance, The Used
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Internalized Homophobia, Mental Health Issues, Other, Religious Guilt, Sexual Tension, Unhealthy Relationships, eating disorders (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21726730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/layzell/pseuds/layzell
Summary: "This is their routine. Stay up all night drinking and smoking and talking, lather rinse repeat. Sometimes if they’re drunk enough, they’ll kiss. They’ve been on tour for a couple months but it feels like Bert’s known him for years. Bert feels like he knows Gerard. He doesn’t want Gerard to know him."Bert and Gerard spend a night drinking together. Set vaguely sometime during Bullets era.
Relationships: Bert McCracken/Gerard Way
Kudos: 53





	In Hell With You

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been a long time in the making. It took me about 4 years of bandom hell for me to publish my own fic but, long after reading all the good stuff on ao3 and livejournal, I had to write the Gerbert fanfic I needed to see in the world. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> In addition to what I tagged, there's also some period-appropriate casual cissexism in this fic.

Bert comes to in a bathtub. First, he registers he’s shivering. Second, he realizes he doesn’t know where he is. Third, he realizes he doesn’t remember how he got here, or anything from the last 24 hours. 

The faucet is dripping. Steam permeates the air and Bert knows it must be warm but the chill is down to his bones. He’s always cold, even when dry. He should turn off the faucet all the way. He should get out of the tub. Both those things seem hard to do right now.

He watches the drip, slow and steady. It’s almost calming except for the vague sense of panic that is with him always, the feeling of never being quite safe. He must be in a hotel. God knows what city. He can feel the specific soreness in his throat that tells him he’s thrown up recently. He can feel alcohol running through his veins, but that’s nearly constant. The only thing steady in his life right now, really.

How long has he been sitting here since he became conscious of his surroundings? Maybe five, maybe ten minutes. It’s impossible to say. He watches the drip, drip, drip.

There’s a knock on the door. Bert’s heartbeat picks up, snatches him out of his stupor. He’s not alone here. “Hey, did you drown?” a nasal, jersey-accented voice questions. “Come on, dude, I really gotta piss.”

Bert needs to speak. “Be out in a second,” his voice says, surprisingly steady and normal-sounding. Of course Gerard’s here. He always is, lately.

Turn off the faucet. Get out of the tub. He looks at himself for a moment in the fogged-up mirror. A blurred version of himself stares back. He grabs a towel and opens the door, completely naked. Gerard looks at his face and then at his body, and pushes past Bert into the bathroom without saying a word.

Well, that’s that. Bert towels off and sits down on the bed. Since when does he shower? It’s a conundrum he puzzles over while Gerard uses the bathroom. He lies back onto the comforter. The ceiling is that ugly textured white, like someone spilled crumbs on the ceiling in reverse-gravity and then painted over it. It’s a ridiculous comparison, but it’s the best way he can think to describe it. There’s a mirror in front of him that’s broken somehow and there are bottles littering the floor. He turns his attention to the mattress and sees the cigarette burns all over it. They’ll be paying for that. Speaking of which, where are his cigarettes?

“Where are my cigarettes?” he asks as Gerard comes out of the bathroom.

“Right where you left them,” Gerard say. He’s slightly unsteady on his feet as he walks, but not stumbling yet. He picks a pack of Newports off the floor. “Catch.”

Bert fumbles but manages to hang on to them. Gerard is smiling with just the side of his mouth, a drunken glow to his face. He climbs onto the bed and lights Bert’s cigarette for him, then lights one for himself. Mooch.

He’s always wearing that leather jacket. Even indoors, even in 90 degree weather. It’s like his armor, but Bert isn’t sure what battle he’s fighting. He can tell it’s starting to fall apart. Bert reaches out and touches it, memorizing the appearance and texture. He doesn’t know why, but he’s trying to hold on to how Gerard feels. His smell, his voice, his laughter and his flaws. He wants to trap Gerard in his memory forever so he can never leave once he’s gone forever.

Gerard moves away from his touch. “You wanna beer?” he asks, a rhetorical question. He gets him one without waiting for a response. 

This is their routine. Stay up all night drinking and smoking and talking, lather rinse repeat. Sometimes if they’re fucked up enough, they’ll kiss. They’ve been on tour for a couple months but it feels like Bert’s known him for years. Bert feels like he knows Gerard. He doesn’t want Gerard to know him.

“You okay?” Gerard asks.

Like you care. He faintly registers they have been conversing for a while, but he doesn't remember what was said. His mind is in a strange dimension identical to this one, except nothing feels quite right. Bert grins ear to ear. “I’m on top of the fucking world.”

Gerard smiles but he doesn’t seem convinced. “Good.” He takes a large swig and places his drink on the bedside table. 

The clock tells Bert that it’s 3:15 in the morning. The night has barely started yet. Bert can feel that gnawing in his stomach that tells him he hasn’t eaten today, or yesterday. A sharp shooting pain somewhere in his abdomen somewhere where his kidney sits that only happens when he denies himself food. He should eat. Instead, he drinks. He’s done with his beer before Gerard is even halfway done with his. Bert smiles at nothing in particular. Gerard looks at him with some sort of mixture of affection and disgust.

“You killed it out there tonight.”

Did he? “Don’t I always?”

Gerard lies down on his back. “You’re the best performer I’ve ever seen.”

Bert says, “Flattery will get you everywhere,” and plants a sloppy kiss on Gerard’s cheek. He can see even in the dim light how Gerard blushes.

It makes him angry, almost. Gerard with his schoolboy crush on him of all people, in this of all settings. It’s like a Honda Civic in the middle of a renaissance fair. It’s bringing a knife to a fistfight. It is, Bert thinks, not fucking fair. He wants to ask Gerard if he even remembers that one night in Chicago, but that might make him run away. When he looks at Gerard looking at him, he sees desire, confusion, and a bit of fear. Maybe more than a bit. Damn Catholics. But despite that, he’s sitting here naked next to him holding a conversation.

“You were great out there too,” Bert says, as if he knows, but it must be true.

“I think I bruised a few ribs,” Gerard says.

Bert snorts. “That’s rock’n’roll for ya.” 

Gerard is lying there, Bert is reclining with his back against the headboard, and Bert can’t quite bear to bring himself down to his level. “How does it feel to be a rockstar?”

“I don’t think I can call myself a rockstar yet.”

Bert smiles. “Oh, but you will be.” He nudges Gerard with his elbow. “You’re already living like one.”

“The plan is to die by 27,” Gerard says in a way that’s almost cheerful.

“I’ll be right after you. But I’ll miss you, in the meantime.” His tone is flippant but it feels vulnerable nonetheless. He reminds himself that he can’t let him get close or things will end badly. He thinks it will anyway. He’s on a train that he already knows will crash, and he sees it in his mind every time he closes his eyes.

“Will you really miss me?”

It catches Bert so off guard, Gerard’s wide eyes and the nervous genuinity to his voice, that he tells the truth. “I’d-I'd keep you in my memories forever. Like you never left.” Gerard says nothing, so Bert continues. “I’m etching you into the inside of my skull. When you leave, I’ll still have my version of you with me. The one I created in my mind.”

Gerard looks away. “Shit, Bert,” Gerard says. He sits up in bed. “I need another drink.” 

Bert feels something but he can’t put his finger on it. He can’t really identify any emotion but afraid, drunk, high, or horny. He knows this much: he’s not in love. He has this funny little buzz around Gerard, maybe somewhere between infatuation and bloodlust. He thinks maybe they’ll hold hands and drive off a cliff together. He thinks maybe they’ll both be the weapons in their own murders. Or maybe he’s just lonely surrounded by anyone else but Gerard.

He nearly startles when Gerard touches his arm. “You’re freezing,” Gerard says.

Bert hadn’t noticed it in a while. “So?”

“Put on some clothes.”

“But I like being naked,” Bert whines, hoping this will start their flirting routine. “I’ll put on clothes if you kiss me.” With each drink, Bert is closer to being happy. Or at least, “drunk” is his happy. He’s sinking into a comfortable numbness that is the only place he knows where to hide.

“Isn’t this supposed to work the other way around,” Gerard deadpans.

“Only if you want it to.”

Gerard pecks Bert on the lips and pulls away immediately. “Get dressed.”

Bert goes into the bathroom and retrieves his shorts and shirt, almost slipping on the water on the floor in the process. “Happy now?” he asks when he comes out, fully clothed.

“Extremely,” Gerard says unconvincingly.

“You should give me your jacket, too, if you’re intent on treating me like a girl.”

“Oh, you aren’t?” Gerard asks mockingly. “I was wondering what that thing between your legs was.”

“Don’t have one of your own for comparison?” Bert quips back.

“You know.”

Bert doesn’t know what to say, so he tackles Gerard. “Gimme your fucking jacket, pussy.”

“Hey, hey! God, your elbows are boney, motherfucker. Ow, my kidney!” Gerard is writhing underneath him; it’s kinda hot. Bert is laughing maniacally.

“Get off me, I’ll give you your fucking jacket,” Gerard says. Once Bert’s off him he takes a second to catch his breath. “I would have given it to you anyway if you hadn’t attacked me.”

With Gerard’s jacket on his body, Bert settles back against the headboard. “Light me another fucking cigarette,” he says. Gerard does.

Bert has all these words in his head about Gerard. Like sometimes I think I’ll miss you when you’re gone and sometimes I can’t bring myself to care about anything. I wish you didn’t have to be drunk to touch me. I wish you weren’t in so much pain but also, I want nothing more than to drag you down with me. I wish I had a soul like you. 

“I’m gonna write a song about you,” Bert says. He doesn’t say he’s already started writing it.

“Oh yeah? What’s it gonna be called?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Something stupid, probably.” It’s called Sound Effects and Overdramatics.

“That’s fitting.”

Bert grabs another drink, stepping around the bottle on the floor and broken mirror shards. He hits Gerard with a pillow when he returns.

“Hey, what was that for?” Gerard asks.

There was no reason, but he decides to throw a monkey wrench into the conversation. “You’re so repressed,” Bert replies. “You wanna be a good little Catholic boy still. You let it get to you.”

Gerard’s brow furrows. “I’m not Catholic.”

“I wasn’t saying you were, I’m saying you let it get to you.” Bert knows he’s coming off mocking and he doesn’t want to, but he’s an asshole. He can’t help that.

Gerard seems to deflate a little. He looks around the room anywhere but Bert’s eyes. “I spent my entire childhood thinking I was going to hell,” he says softly. “Sometimes I think I still will.”

Bert sits up, leans in closer. “You can still unlearn it, dude.”

“How?”

Bert isn’t sure what to say. What comes out of his mouth is, “Fuck, I don’t even know how I did. I realized nobody I liked or respected was gonna be in heaven. Heaven can go fuck itself, for all I care.”

Gerard smiles. “You’re brave.”

Bert laughs. “Fuck you.”

“Really.”

Bert puts a cigarette out on the comforter with an ashtray two feet away. “It’ll be you and me, in hell together. We could be there right now.”

“I’m gonna be in hell tomorrow morning when I wake up with a hangover.”

Bert grins. “Not if we keep on drinking through the day.”

Gerard laughs but he doesn’t mean it. Bert can see it, a sadness in Gerard’s eyes, a black hole sucking him in and never really goes away. The only thing he really feels equipped to do is suffer equally with him. Maybe he’s making Gerard worse. Maybe Gerard is doing the same to him. All he wants to do right now, though, is lie down next to him and hold his hand, and he does. Bert closes his eyes and sees a future for them behind his eyelids. It’s a naive fantasy, but in this moment it feels real. The thought that they might survive. 

When Bert opens his eyes, Gerard is looking at him. All he can think is, why me? What has he done to deserve Gerard looking at him like that? He feels lightheaded and slightly sick to his stomach. He looks at Gerard. In this moment, he feels far too seen by him.

Gerard squeezes his hand and says, “You’re beautiful,” with something close to reverence. Bert hates it. He sees nothing beautiful about himself.

Bert remembers when he was a kid, in church, feeling the Holy Spirit so strong it left him in tears. Something that felt good at the time that's irreparably tainted by everything that happened afterward. The memory leaves fresh scars every time. It’s been so long since he felt like that; he can barely remember what it was like. He thinks being with Gerard is the closest thing he’s found to religion. He feels the need to confess to someone. Maybe someday he’ll make peace with it, and everything that it comes with.


End file.
